Wikipedia:Peer review/Empires: Dawn of the Modern World/archive1

Empires: Dawn of the Modern World

I helped get this article up to GA status a little while back, and I made the decision that I would try to get it up to FA status. I already had this article peer reviewed on the CVG peer review, and I I think the review really helped improve it. However, I think that adding it to the standard peer review will give it the final push of improving whatever's necessary to make it a featured article. Any help would be appreciated.--Clyde Miller 15:38, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's definitely a solid article, but one that needs quite a bit of improvement before an attempt at FAC. In the lead:

Exact release dates are nice to have, and are standard procedure in computer and video game-related featured articles.

"In many ways, it is a spiritual sequel to Empire Earth, Stainless Steel Studios' previous game." - This sentence is original research. To remove this, simply merge it into the following sentence, with something like "The game has been referred to by the press as an un-official sequel to Empire Earth".

"Although a slightly compressed version, Empires: Dawn of the Modern World is based on world history, spanning 5 epochs from the Medieval Age to World War II." - Clumsy wording causes this sentence to be unclear. Try something like "Empires: Dawn of the Modern World is based on a slightly compressed version of world history, spanning five epochs from the Medieval Age to World War II".

Gameplay needs some work, but like the rest of the article, it's mostly solid stuff. Some suggestions:

As big of a pain as they can be, a few more citations could probably be used.

Needs some copyediting to remove a bit of the clumsiness, with things like "Empires is based around gathering resources and using those resources to construct buildings and an army" being changed to "Central to Empires is the gathering of resources, which are used to build structures and armies." Another one that stuck out to me was "Resources are gathered by citizens, who bring it back to Town Centers." Try "Citizens gather resources, placing them in Town Center structures," or somesuch. If you want, I'll give it a once-over a bit later.

The bolded list needs to be integrated into the main text body. For starters, I recommend placing "Resources" after the "Resources are continually gathered..." sentence. However, it contains some original research with "The resources of Empires are not unlike those in many other RTS games." The best way to get rid of this is cutting it entirely, reducing the part to "The resources of Empires break down into food, wood, gold, stone. Each is used in a variety of ways, and must be totally utilized to achieve victory." The rest could be similarly integrated.

"...are only the center of attention at the beginning of it." Original research. Please find a citation for this.

"After the beginning of the game, the construction of an army takes top priority for the player, as an enemy cannot be defeated by anything other then an enemy army (or if they resign). Resignation is used if a player is going to give up, and usually coincides with imminent defeat." - As with the above, this is original research. In addition, "then" should be "than", and the last bit could be rewritten into something like "as enemies are defeated through military conflict. Players may also resign from the game."

"To be victorious, players must raise a balanced and organized army. To be balanced, micromanagement is important. Micromanagement is breaking down an army into groups, whether it is by unit or several different types of units put together to make several smaller divisions of the main army. Micromanagement is important because it helps a player command quickly when they are attacking an opponent." - Original research, and needless discussion of micromanagement that could be left to the micromanagement article. Try "To be victorious, players must raise balanced and organized armies, utilizing micromanagement by breaking armies into groups," and adding a citations at the end.

For Campaigns, the main issue is the... rather odd use of spoiler tags. I do not believe discussing world history counts as "spoiling".

Development needs an overhaul, particularly with its strange want to discuss the company instead of the actual game. The details about its development company could probably be cut and the rest editing, leaving something like "Empires was developed by the now-defunct Stainless Steel Studios. The game was developed on an upgraded version the "Titan" engine, which was used in the company's previous title, Empire Earth. A demo of Empires was available before the game's release[14] and news was released about it in E3 2003." If applicable, include information about all of the game's appearances at E3, Games Convention, Consumer Electronics Show and the like, along with dates and citations for each appearance. In addition, include information from "designer diaries" and announcements made about the game's development.

There are a few issues besides those, but I'll leave them to the rest of the reviewers. Good work so far. JimmyBlackwing 09:55, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wow. I took care of the lead and the spoiler issues, and I'll start working on the gameplay and devolpment as soon as I get a chance.--Clyde Miller 20:39, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've worked on most of the article suggestions you gave me, and I usually used your ideas for the sentences. Your ability with word choice, prose, and grammer structure far excedes mine. However, finding citations may be a bit harder, so I'm working on that. On a different note, any copyediting you would like to do would be greatly appreciated.--Clyde Miller 20:22, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the copyedit and the advice. I've fixed pretty much everything, with the exception of finding news about the game at the Games Convention and Consumer Electronics Show. I'm still looking into those. Is there anything else I need, didn't correct, or missed? Thanks.--Clyde Miller 03:46, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

General citations are usually not accepted in FAC. I recommend you switch the bulleted items in "references" to inline citations, and cite the necessary prose with them. Also, while the reception section is pretty good, I note two problems:

I have a hard time believing that the game only received multiple criticisms for its lack of a good tutorial, so you should dig up some more info there.

While there are plenty of different sources used, I think it would be best to include some magazine reviews. Sources like Gamezone aren't as notable as GameSpot, IGN, GameSpy and the other big players. I think you should try tracking down reviews from PC Gamer, Computer Gaming World, and Computer Games Magazine. According to Metacritic, these are the Jan 2004, Feb 2004 and Feb 2004 issues, respectively. I can't offer much more help than that, but I suggest taking a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Computer and video games/Magazines if you don't have access to those sources.

Aside from that, its looking good (aside from the information you're digging for). I don't think you should go for FAC yet, though - wait for a few more reviewers here. Perhaps request some feedback from willing people over at WikiProject Computer and Video Games? JimmyBlackwing 06:14, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well the CVG review has this on it's peer review page, and it's only one of six games there (pretty low at the moment). I was hoping maybe some of the people on the CVG review would add something, but all I can do until someone helps out is wait. I don't think that Empires appeared in the CES (it was all speakers and the like), and the GC info is buried so deep I'm buying a shovel, if the info about it actually exists. If there wasn't any news about Empires at the GC or CES, I'll at least add more E3 news. I'm still looking though.--Clyde Miller 13:38, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I totally exhausted every source I know regarding the game conventions, so I added a little bit more about the E3 annoucement instead. Is this Okay?--Clyde Miller 22:51, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's definitely better. I'll give the subject a look and see if I can't find anything that could help. Game conventions aren't the only thing that may be used in development sections, after all. JimmyBlackwing 22:52, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay cool. You probably have more places to look, and thanks. I also never got a chance to thank you for the help with the reception section, which I'm currently working on. I have the reviews for Computer Gaming World, PC Gamer, I got a little tidbit from Gamepro, but I couldn't find Computer Games Magazine other than the quote on Metacritic. I'll find a place to put them in, whether it is in the first reception paragraph or in the section about what the critics didn't like. I also may put more in from some of the other reviews I have already used, and include more of the gripes of the critics.--Clyde Miller 00:51, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good. I only managed to find a little bit on the game's development, but it was a nice touch, I think. With the addition of the magazine reviews, this article will really come together. Drop me a line when you decide to try for FAC and I'll help you out. FAC can be pretty harsh, but I've gone through the process a few times, so I can give you a hand with whatever gets requested. JimmyBlackwing 14:12, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for everything, and the development section looks excellent. I'm gonna add my part about the reception, then I'll drop a note on your talk page or here when it's put on FAC.--Clyde Miller 21:24, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well Empires is now a FAC. I guess this can be closed up now. Thanks to JimmyBlackWing for helping me get this far.--Clyde Miller 00:38, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Thanks, Ruhrfisch 03:37, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]